The Last of Us

[king3pj]

Well I'm about 2 hours in now. The cut scenes look great and the actual game looks ok. The world is very detailed. I am having a good time so far. I haven't really gotten far enough into the game to know any spoilers but without giving away any details I will just say this, parts of this game are very intense. I'm sure that will only ramp up as the story progresses too.

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention... The voice acting is great, and not just from Joel and Ellie. Every character I have met so far has been great. Even the random NPCs talking amongst themselves as you walk past sound believable.
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[yourbeliefs]

Mine didn't arrive today (not that I expected it to.) Hopefully tomorrow I can delve into it a bit.

 

[king3pj]

Mine didn't arrive today (not that I expected it to.) Hopefully tomorrow I can delve into it a bit.

Any luck today? I'm almost 6 hours in now and that's without any playtime today because I had other stuff going on. This is one of those games where I keep planning to shut down at the next checkpoint but blow past it instead.


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[yourbeliefs]

Nope. Gamefly isn't great where I am. It'll probably come on Monday.. hopefully..

 

[king3pj]

Ok here are my first negative impressions of this game. As a whole it's still a great game but it wouldn't be fair to dish out all the praise and gloss over the negatives.

First, the load times are atrocious. I can't think of one game that takes longer from inserting the disk to actual playtime.

Second, the visuals. Maybe it's just because I've been playing on PC a lot lately but this game just doesn't look very pretty to me. The world is very detailed and big but the textures aren't great. I think they put so much detail everywhere that they didn't have the resources to make it look great. All my complaints in the visual area are strictly for the daytime moments. The dark parts of the game where you have to use a flashlight to see anything are as good as anything I have seen on console. The lighting is very good. The cutscenes and voice acting are also great.

Last, I have a couple complaints with the AI. The first one is with Ellie and other characters who help you along the way. The game goes to great lengths to stress the stealth approach, especially against the stronger clicker zombies. They are blind but have great hearing. I spend a long time carefully moving through the clicker sections because one mistake and they are all over you. That's fine because slow crouched movement is one of the biggest components of the game.

However, Ellie and my other companions will sprint from cover to cover around me while I'm sneaking around. They sometimes run right into or past a clicker at full sprint. Now, the game doesn't unfairly punish me for what my companions do. The clickers just ignore them even though they would have been all over me for the same movement. Because of this it's not a game breaking problem but it still takes away from the immersion of the game to see Ellie sprinting around like an idiot during the super intense clicker stealth sections.

My other AI complaint isn't quite as big of a problem for me but it's still noticeable. Clickers are supposed to be blind. As soon as any standard zombie or clicker sees you even if they are all the way across the level every zombie on the map instantly knows your exact location. They all sprint directly at you at once, even the blind clickers on the other side of the map. Thankfully the human enemy AI is much better. They work together to flank you and things like that. If you get in a shoot out they don't all know where you are, only the ones who can actually see you. If you kill them the other ones who didn't see you realistically search the area looking for you.

I am still enjoying this game very much. The world and story is super immersive and once I start I play for hours. Nothing here is game breaking in my opinion but this game isn't perfect.


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[yourbeliefs]

I'm still very early in the game, about 2 hours in. Hell I still haven't met that other girl yet (Yeah, slight spoiler: You don't spend the whole game with that girl on the cover.) I agree that the initial load times are atrocious, but quite frankly this has been common for Naughty Dog since the Uncharted games. The good news is that if you need to reload a save (which you will likely be doing to make the most of your encounters where you don't lose a lot of health/ammo as both are quite scarce) it's basically instant.

The presentation and voice acting are very good, but Naughty Dog doesn't get points for that anymore because at this point that should be a given, like Bioware games having good writing (believe me this is a compliment and not an insult.) I do like the emphasis on stealth kills but it is slightly annoying because the way the levels have been laid out so far it's VERY easy to lose track of everyone. I feel like I need to draw a map of where everyone is. On one hand it adds challenge in a nice, organic way as opposed to an artificial method of just throwing more guys in, but it does get a little annoying to stalk a guy and bring him down, only to then get up and look to your side and suddenly see a guy you lost track of 5 some odd minutes ago. Oh, and while I understand that choking a guy out should leave you exposed and unable to defend yourself, I don't think it's fair or logical that the character needs to "finish" the choking animation before you can get out of the way of bullets. There should be a "GTFO" button that lets you throw the guy away so you can take cover from the onslaught of bullets.

Overall though I am hopeful and optimistic. Seems like fun so far. I just wish I could devote more than just 1 hour a day to playing the damn thing. ;p

 

[king3pj]

I'm still very early in the game, about 2 hours in. Hell I still haven't met that other girl yet (Yeah, slight spoiler: You don't spend the whole game with that girl on the cover.) I agree that the initial load times are atrocious, but quite frankly this has been common for Naughty Dog since the Uncharted games. The good news is that if you need to reload a save (which you will likely be doing to make the most of your encounters where you don't lose a lot of health/ammo as both are quite scarce) it's basically instant.

The presentation and voice acting are very good, but Naughty Dog doesn't get points for that anymore because at this point that should be a given, like Bioware games having good writing (believe me this is a compliment and not an insult.) I do like the emphasis on stealth kills but it is slightly annoying because the way the levels have been laid out so far it's VERY easy to lose track of everyone. I feel like I need to draw a map of where everyone is. On one hand it adds challenge in a nice, organic way as opposed to an artificial method of just throwing more guys in, but it does get a little annoying to stalk a guy and bring him down, only to then get up and look to your side and suddenly see a guy you lost track of 5 some odd minutes ago. Oh, and while I understand that choking a guy out should leave you exposed and unable to defend yourself, I don't think it's fair or logical that the character needs to "finish" the choking animation before you can get out of the way of bullets. There should be a "GTFO" button that lets you throw the guy away so you can take cover from the onslaught of bullets.

Overall though I am hopeful and optimistic. Seems like fun so far. I just wish I could devote more than just 1 hour a day to playing the damn thing. ;p

I'm about 11 hours in now. The other thing I forgot to mention about load times, there are no load times between sections of the game either. It takes forever from loading the disk to playing but once you finally start you don't have to worry about that again.

A couple things with your stealth problems. As I got farther into the game the stealth actually got easier for me even though the difficulty is supposed to ramp up. Eventually you just get a better idea of what you can and cannot do. If you press R2 to focus your hearing(xray vision), throw bottles or bricks to separate enemies, and use your bow instead of guns when possible on humans the stealth gets easier. I still randomly get spotted sometimes but at least I usually take out most of them first. You can also pull enemies behind a wall before you choke them so you aren't seen.


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[KE4EST]

Glad to see these comment and reviews, makes me anxious. I have been waiting for this game since it first was announced over a year ago, but a couple weeks ago my PS3 died. So hopefully I can play this soon.

 

[king3pj]

Glad to see these comment and reviews, makes me anxious. I have been waiting for this game since it first was announced over a year ago, but a couple weeks ago my PS3 died. So hopefully I can play this soon.

Ouch... that's really bad timing. With the PS4 launch only about 5 months away I would have a tough time justifying the purchase of a replacement PS3 if I were in your situation. I would also have a hard time skipping The Last of Us and Beyond Two Souls. This probably wouldn't be the end of the world for most people but if the PS3 was my only gaming system I would go crazy trying to wait 5 months with no games.

 

[yourbeliefs]

If you're desperate you can get one used for under $200 on Amazon or Ebay or Craigslist.

 

[KE4EST]

Yeah that is what I will do in a week or so is get a used one, cause I agree, I don't want to go new when the PS4 is coming so soon.

 

[dangue]

Glad to see these comment and reviews, makes me anxious. I have been waiting for this game since it first was announced over a year ago, but a couple weeks ago my PS3 died. So hopefully I can play this soon.

Mine just died last night (red standby light, flash green, then no power). Looking online, it might be the PSU. I'm going to open it up to figure out which one is compatible and then order a replacement to swap it out. It could be a motherboard short, but I'll going to hope for the best. I'm willing to risk $35 to bring it back to life.

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[king3pj]

Geez. I haven't heard too much about PS3 failures unlike my Launch 20GB 360 that had to be replaced 3 times. Luckily Microsoft did it free of charge every time. Now both of you at the same time. I hope my 160GB PS3 slim holds out a few more months. I still have a lot of backlog and PS Plus games to get through before the PS4 launch and since I have a 360 and PC to hold me over I won't be replacing this PS3 if it dies.

 

[Zookster]

Geez. I haven't heard too much about PS3 failures unlike my Launch 20GB 360 that had to be replaced 3 times. Luckily Microsoft did it free of charge every time. Now both of you at the same time. I hope my 160GB PS3 slim holds out a few more months. I still have a lot of backlog and PS Plus games to get through before the PS4 launch and since I have a 360 and PC to hold me over I won't be replacing this PS3 if it dies.

My original 40 GB phat died after 2 1/2 years, as did many other peoples (within 18-30 months) who are regular to heavy gamers. Right now my 120 GB slim system is bricked by the 4.45 FW update that was released last night. Still waiting for an update from Sony.

 

[dangue]

Geez. I haven't heard too much about PS3 failures unlike my Launch 20GB 360 that had to be replaced 3 times. Luckily Microsoft did it free of charge every time. Now both of you at the same time. I hope my 160GB PS3 slim holds out a few more months. I still have a lot of backlog and PS Plus games to get through before the PS4 launch and since I have a 360 and PC to hold me over I won't be replacing this PS3 if it dies.

Mine was a release 60GB. So it's been a good long while. I left it on for a prolonged period of time to download PS Network game downloads (which are horribly slow). Strange part is, the weather has been cool around here and the system was not excessively hot.

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[yourbeliefs]

Mine is an 80 GB from the MGS4 Bundle (the last of it's type sold with software emulation.) Still running strong, but to be fair my 360 has always been my go to console, and I did have a RRoD on that.

 

[king3pj]

Turns out I was wrong when I said I thought I only had a couple hours left at around the 11 hour mark. I was determined to finish the game tonight and it took a late night gaming marathon to do it.

According to my save file it took me 18 hours and 28 minutes to finish the game. That's quite the beefy campaign considering that I finished Gears Judgement in under 6 hours. To be fair my play style with this game was very slow and overly cautious stealth and I struggled with a few parts towards the end. I have seen some people on different gaming websites say they finished the game in about 12 hours. For all my efforts I finished the game with only 3 trophies. I don't normally try to max out achievements or trophies in most games but the small number in this game is definitely unusual. I didn't unlock my first one until after the 9 hour mark and it actually startled me when it popped because of the intense nature of this game.

Now for the most important part. How was the game? I absolutely loved it. I honestly can't decide between this and Bioshock Infinite for my favorite game of the year. I keep going back and forth. They both have a great story, great acting, great worlds, and most importantly, fun gameplay.

There are a couple other similarities between TLoU and Bioshock. The main characters from both games, Joel and Booker, were both voiced by Troy Baker. I see that he is also doing a bunch of the voices for the new Arkham game as well as the main character in the new Infamous game. He is quickly becoming one of the biggest actors in the gaming industry. The other obvious comparison is Ellie and Elizabeth. They are both young girls who don't need constant protection. In fact they both actually help you out in a fight.

Yes TLoU could have used some next gen power but this is still the most polished game I have ever played. They built a world that feels real and characters you actually care about. There are a couple AI issues that I mentioned earlier in this thread but besides that everything was great. If you are a gamer with a PS3 you absolutely need to try this game. It is the best exclusive I have played on either the PS3 or 360. Aaaand there is my long winded end of game post. Now quit reading and go play it.


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[Scherrman]

This game now tops my wanted list. I love games like this.

 

[eclipse01]

cant wait to play this

 

[dfergie]

I saw a article today where Ellen Page was commenting on how much a character looked like Her, and from the cap it did...